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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Senate Hopefuls Split On Solutions To Issues

No matter who wins, Spokane will soon lose one of its most respected state legislators.

Sen. John Moyer is a popular, senior-statesman Republican. The longtime physician is deferred to on health-care issues and is seen by some lawmakers as a model of thoughtfulness.

Rep. Lisa Brown is an ambitious and praised House Democrat, picked for a leadership position in just her second term. Her concise speaking style impresses colleagues.

On Nov. 5, 3rd District voters will have to choose between the wise grandfather and the bright single mom as their next state senator.

Moyer says he now understands the Senate and wants to continue to apply his expertise to health and welfare issues.

“I know the players. I know the steps that have to be taken.” He also says he wants to keep on solving constituent problems.

“It’s a lot like practicing medicine. I enjoy that.”

Brown says she wants to give Spokane a different voice in the Senate. “There’s nobody in the Senate from Spokane who votes like me.”

Although Moyer, 74, and Brown, 40, represent different parties and generations, their issues and concerns are often the same.

It’s their solutions that vary, and those solutions tend to follow conventional party-line approaches to problems in Spokane’s city core and central neighborhoods.

Moyer says it’s time to wean more people off welfare and into the workplace. He calls the new federal welfare time limits an exciting challenge.

Brown says people can’t just be shoved off welfare without creating the jobs to help them. She fears the new federal law and calls it disappointing.

Moyer vows to block tax increases and keep more money in the pockets of constituents.

Brown says the state can’t abandon commitments in order to give tax cuts for businesses that don’t need them.

A look at campaign filings shows the two candidates also attract different financial backers.

Moyer receives most of his campaign cash from doctors, business owners, timber companies and insurance companies.

Brown gets most of her cash from labor unions, professors, social workers and environmentalists.

State Rep. Duane Sommers, R-Spokane, gives this insight into the two candidates and how they are regarded in Olympia.

“He’s a real considerate guy, and persistent,” Sommers says of Moyer. “He’s one of the good old boys.”

Sommers says Moyer is so highly regarded on health issues he’ll be the next chairman of the Senate health committee if the Republicans win control of the chamber.

Sommers says Brown is respected for her abilities to run the House floor. “I don’t agree with her very often, but she’s articulate and very quick on her feet.” He also says Brown is extremely liberal, more so than Puget Sound liberals.

A prominent Democrat senator, who asked not to be identified, gave this assessment of the race:

“John Moyer is one of my favorite Republicans.” But too often Moyer abandons his good instincts in favor of the Republican party line, he says.

“I think the district would be better served by Lisa,” he says, then adds he thinks Brown is “well-above average” as far as legislators go, but not necessarily a future star.

When they talk about each other, Moyer casts Brown as someone who doesn’t hesitate to raise taxes or defend failed social programs.

He points to her support of the “biggest tax increase in state history” in 1993, and her vote against welfare reform in the last Legislature.

Brown says Moyer takes both votes out of context.

She says the 1993 tax increase was necessary to balance the budget, and that since then the state has been busy providing tax cuts for businesses in the state.

The welfare reforms she voted against were different from the ones Moyer voted for in the Senate, she says.

Given her shot, Brown casts Moyer as a waffling conservative who comes up with vague proposals he doesn’t know how to pay for.

She notes he told Spokane environmentalists last year that he’d oppose the “Takings Initiative” - requiring taxpayers to reimburse landowners hurt by environmental regulations - but then voted for it.

He also supported the controversial 1993 health care reform, then spent the next year helping dismantle part of it.

Moyer defends both decisions, saying they were the right ones at the time. “Sometimes you get information at the last minute that’s valid, that will change your vote,” he says.

Moyer doesn’t aggressively broadcast his party affiliation in one of the state’s most Democratic districts.

The state Public Disclosure Commission scolded him shortly before the Sept. 17 primary for failing to note on campaign materials that he was a Republican.

But the primary results followed district party lines anyway: Brown 57 percent, Moyer 43 percent.

Moyer expects to pull out an underdog victory, as he did in 1992 when he overtook Bill Day in the closing month of the campaign.

Brown is confident that won’t happen. Day was damaged by a scandal when Moyer ran past him, and the district was just then getting reorganized, she says.

Both Brown and Moyer are familiar Spokane faces that have reservoirs of support and endearment in the 3rd.

Brown, a well-known associate professor of economics at Eastern Washington University, gets up and speaks almost everywhere she goes.

Moyer, along with spending a decade in the Legislature, has delivered about 800 Spokane babies. Some of them come to the door when he goes knocking for votes.

Both candidates are regulars at 3rd District gatherings, but Moyer’s appearance is often more newsworthy.

For example, when the Women’s Drop-In Center at 218 S. Howard threw a going-away party for its director last June, Moyer was the only legislator, probably the only Republican, and definitely the only man, to show up.

, DataTimes MEMO: See individual profiles by name of candidate

See individual profiles by name of candidate